In Other Words

Googlewhack

So yesterday (Sunday) Boobs showed me an article in the New Paper about Google Whacking, which is the art of taking a combination of any two proper English words (how ever obscure, as long as they are recognised as words) and seeing if you could get only one hit. You can then send that hit in and it gets added to a list of google whacks. Of course that then generally means the word gets two links and isn’t technically a googlewhack anymore.

That reminds of me of the most elementary paradox I was taught in high school:

A group of scientists decides to make a database that includes all incomplete databases in the world (impossible, I know, just bear with me here). They go around everywhere and get all the databases that aren’t complete and put them together into their own database. They are coming along nicely until right at the end. They have to add one more database, but they can’t.

Why not? Well, because it’s their own database. As long a they don’t mention their own database in the database of all incomplete databases it had to be mentioned. But the moment they place the name of their own database within their database it is completed and therefore it needs to be taken out again.

Paradox.

Interesting fact: Hummingbirds can beat their wings at approximately 200 beats per second. To maintain this they need to take in the human equivalent of 1300 hamburgers per day (twice their body weight). What’s more, if a human would move at that speed they would need 1200 hard beats per minute and their body temperature would rise to nearly 400 degrees Celsius, causing them to burst into flames.

posted by Symbol @ 13.9.04